Dear Mr Musk.
What was important about Twitter: the corruption, bias, censorship, ruthless data harvesting and the so-far unexplored reality that personal data being harvested by AIs is indistinguishable from that which an AI might fabricate and is therefore not worth anybody paying money for (which Twitter has in common with all social media save Flickr (where people share beauty rather than opinions)), was important only as long as it remained unexposed. Now it has been exposed, anybody who seeks to address those evils is probably well-equipped to do so. As for AIs fabricating (with or without the knowledge of the relevant CEO) personal data with a market value, it is likely that by exposing the huge number of completely bogus accounts on Twitter you have already done enough to give those footing the gigantic bill for the Social Media Oligarchs and their agendas pause for thought! The business model of ALL the big social media companies depends on the data they are selling being genuine stolen data and not synthetic data on individuals who do not actually exist. Assuming that your purpose in getting Twitter to force you to take control of it, was to destroy the business model of social media companies your work there is either already done, or no longer the best use of your time.
The projects that you are known and widely respected for, have all been in the real world or at least the real outer space surrounding it. PayPal and anything else which makes the internet a tool for people to use in real life, is of more value than social media, whilst the "Metaverse" seeks to create an income-stream entirely divorced from any reality, especially any economic reality. I have a feeling that the Metaverse is about to make Richard Branson's move into the airline business look financially astute! It is time for you to get back to the real world, even if you believe the real world to be a simulation. (There are some cosmologists who think it might actually be easier to create a new real universe than to build and sustain a simulation of one.)
Critics of your real-world activities complain that they cannot tell the difference between many of your business plans and Science Fiction. As a Science Fiction author I am actually rather pleased with you in that respect, because proper Science Fiction should ideally be one scientific or technological change away from becoming reality. In the case of the "far-fetched" projects of yours that matter to the real world, what stands between you and their realisation always boils down to an "energy density of the complete solution" which you have not got.
You've got a good-enough energy density for electric cars, but to really make a breakthrough into electric trucks (HGVs, not pickups) you need something like one order of magnitude better than you have got, especially in the wide-open spaces of Canada, Australia and South Africa. With Space-X, the energy density of the complete solution you've already got, will get you to the moon. But to get to Mars and back quickly enough for humans to survive the trip, again you need an energy density about an order of magnitude better than what you have got.
Now then. If you were to make the breakthrough that stands between you and your "far-fetched" dreams becoming reality, so many other things would become possible, for so many other inventors and entrepreneurs, that problems which currently terrify half the world would be solvable and solved. When we do difficult things in the real world, the world does change and the general trend is, despite the never-ending chorus of doom, towards change for the better. For all the hatred and anger against "Big Pharma" engendered by some pretty blatant (and inexplicable) wrong-doing by very powerful people over the Covid Pandemic, it remains true that before the anti-ulcer drug, "Tagamet" was developed and licensed in the mid nineteen-seventies, complications from stomach ulcers were the single most common cause of death, worldwide, in peacetime for persons under fifty years old. Nowadays, almost no-one dies from stomach ulcers and Tagamet and its successors save more lives than any of the vastly more expensive anti-cancer and anti-HIV drugs do, especially in the developing world. (It's not just about funds: publicity for the efficacy of established and non-controversial medicines is absolutely nil; that is both why Big Pharma so frequently does the wrong thing and why it is hated even when it is doing the right thing.)
The potential for good exists in every breakthrough in the real world. But those breakthroughs do have to be made. If the one order of magnitude breakthrough in energy density for both space launchers and electric trucks were made, not only would climate-changing emission targets that are currently politically and economically unthinkable become achievable, but whole fields of endeavour in climate-management which are currently not even doable, such as lofting either huge solar-power arrays or even larger "solar-shades" into appropriate orbits would become not just doable but affordable, too. It must be noted that we might not want the solar shades to orbit the Earth, but the Sun. This really would need a step-change in the energy density of our satellite launchers!
So, Mr Musk. I am not opposing you, or trying to drive you in any direction you do not want to go: I just think you can do the most good for yourself and the rest of us if you return to making a reality out of Science Fiction rather than sense out of politics! Because, with both our environmental and our economic problems (and the latter are quite capable of killing the most people) no application of existing technology, no matter how fervent the support or how much ideological correctness attends its application, is going to get the job done.
Here comes an appropriate plug:
Mr Musk: to help you and your supporters I have written a Science Fiction novel (at 85,000 words it is hardly an exhausting read) which shows (amongst many other things) how improving the energy density of the complete solution by one order of magnitude, transforms our ability to achieve our dreams. (And if you increase the energy density of electric road vehicles by one order or magnitude the braking distance should at least halve (because the vehicle would be much lighter) and that might save quite a few lives!)
Smashwords (release date, by a happy coincidence, 22/12/2022):
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1291276
ISBN: 9781005315016
This title will also be available on Smashwords affiliates, such as Barnes & Noble.
Paperback & Kindle (already in print and available):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B47FLBDS
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B47FLBDS
ISBN: 9798837658099
1 comment:
As always, Matthew's penchant to boldly go [sic: split infinitive] stimulates critical consideration of the possible and the impossible. Whilst wishing Mr Musk every success with an order of magnitude advance in the energy density of elecric HGVs and Space travel, I increasingly worry that we are on the wrong journey. At a mundane level: why send humans (brilliantly adapted to living on Earth), say, to explore Mars when next generation AI will surely do a better, cheaper job? More seriously, we must differentiate between our benign drives inherited from evolution (such as curiosity, loyalty, care for our environment and the members of 'our own tribe' {sometimes confused with altruism}) and destructive ones (such as imagined security in possessions and the fear and exploitation of other 'tribes'). Matthew is correct that a legion of economic problems are more dangerous even than environmental ones: apart from the obvious risk of war [come back CND, all is forgiven], the destructive drivers in the 'developing world' are reinforced by a refusal of CEOs to pay fair prices for resources nor fair tax and of governments to cancel unjust debt nor to consider reparations for (on-going) exploitation. The normalisation of such stupidity means that most of us in developed countries who profess a concern for the climate are happy to plant trees in poor countries (good-ish in itself) as a cover for our continued CO2 emissions. Sadly, the metaverse, far from being divourced from economic reality, is, through stimulating consumption, creating false dreams. [would any hard-headed CEO advertise on Meta, Youtube, Twitter and that ilk unless their foundational concept of maximising exposure to advertisements 'delivered the goods'?] My central message, as a Christian preacher, is not doom but hope and forgiveness; if, however, we do not somehow find the motivation to change direction ('repent') the inevitable conclusion will be that much of our very real progress will be lost and even Mr Musk's hypothetical solar arrays will be unable to prevent the collapse of our global civilisation ('Empires', if you prefer).
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